Patricia L Scharer is a Professor of Education at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include early literacy development, phonics and word study, and the role of children's literature to foster both literary development and literacy achievement. Her research has been published in Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, Educational Leadership, Language Arts, The Reading Teacher, Reading Research and Instruction and the yearbooks of the National Reading Conference and the College Reading Association.

She has served as co-editor of the Journal of Children’s Literature, Bookbird:  A Journal of International Children’s Literature, and the Children’s Books column of The Reading Teacher. Professor Scharer is also co-editor of Extending Our Reach: Teaching for Comprehension in Reading, Grades K-2 and co-author of Rethinking Phonics: Making the Best Teaching Decisions. Currently, she chairs the national Literacy Collaborative Trademark Committee and is conducting federally-funded research in partnership with University of Chicago, Lesley University, and Stanford University.  She can be contacted at scharer.1@osu.edu.